@Blickers,
Blickers wrote:However, Layman, you try to ignore that he said that after he just pushed through and signed the bill which guaranteed blacks the right to vote, the right to go into a restaurant and order a burger without having to sit in a special section, the right to use the same bathrooms in that restaurant as the white people, and the right to apply for a job and not get automatically turned down because of their color. A historic reversal of the circumstances which kept blacks down to a sub-citizen level for hundreds of years.
And all you can do is talk about Johnson's choice of word at a moment like that? Have you no idea of the importance of what Johnson had just done?
I suspect the issue here is that the rights you listed already existed, though they had been subverted and denied by the very political system from which Johnson emerged, and, as well, supporting attitudes that were fairly pervasive in the country. The race-based laws Johnson played a major role in enacting, squarely addressed some symptoms and manifestations of the core issues but themselves did little about them. Johnson and others did indeed, verbally address the underlying issues, but it appears with little effect.
The net result appears to have been the emergemce of a new political class of largely white self-appointed sponsors of black patronage surrounded by an echelon of also self-appointed black leaders who (in my view) were merely the most agile and exploitave among them, as opposed to real leaders (Jackson and Sharpton are prime examples). It was all a very well intended and fashioned progressive program, but what were its results? Layman has pointed out some of the failures, and the fact that Black Americans also played a role in the outcome.
It appears from your question above that you believe Layman may be insufficiently appreciative for what was done for Black Americans by these new sponsors. I believe that opens a door to a likely very interesting and timely set of questions which I believe will increasingly be discussed and debated in the months ahead.
I think that history (and ongoing events in the rest of the world) should remind us that these physical and cultural differences among peoples living in the same country present serious, often intractable issues everywhere. Discord, isolation and conflict are the rule, not the exception.
There aren't many models out there for lasting success. India sees episodes of religious, tribal and caste based violence and discord. China has issues with Tibetian, and Mongul minorities and various religious groups. Sunni and Sjia Moslems are slaughtering each other with abandon. The EU nations, the UK included, are beset with large numbers of increasingly unassimilated immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa. The banlieues of Paris and other French and Belgian cities and others across much of Europe, attest to a continuing , perhaps still growing problem.
Progressive laws administered by even well-meaning bureaucrats of the ruling group don't appear to yield a lasting solution. Indeed, in a cruel irony, they sometimes suggest a modern, sanitary version of the plantation life of the South.
What works? I believe the expeience of the United States (and Canada} in the 19th & 20th centuries in assimilating millions of refugees and immigrants from across Europe and parts of Asia, may provide a useful example. Decades ago the ethnic origins of Irish, Italian, Jewish ( Ashkenazi, German and Sephardic), Czechs, Slovacs, Poles, Lithuanians, Swedes and many others flooded this country in very large numbers relative to the then established population, were vividly evident to everyone. They were known variously as Paddys or Micks, Dagos, Yids or Kikes, Polacks etc, and all experienced some substantial degree of isolation, rejection and often unfair treatment. Both the U.S. and Canada had the advantage of extensive unfilled territory for this process, but the fact of it is that most of the subsequent successful assimilation occurred in big cities in the East and Midwest. Today those identities have largely dissapeared.
This is an experience that has few equivalents in the world, and I believe it is the best available model foe what is needed now.
That assimilation was not sponsored by any government programs, Indeed it often occurred in spite of them. It occurred often in ethnically defined neighborhoods, with different national groups competing for the next rung up from thre bottom of the economic ladder. The whole process took about three generations and the occupations of the first one mostly involved labor, sports, crime, and small businesses. The second generation moved farther and the third had earned a degree of self-respect and the often grudgingly given respect of others. After that the differences didn't matter much and each group has added its own ingredients to the evolving cosmopolitan culture more or less shared by all.
The Civil War ended slavery, at great cost for all, but Jim Crow largely stopped the clock on this natural assimilation process for Blacks: economic advancement was flatly prohibited. Despite that, and often in the face of real opposition, a cohesive Black family and church culture arose in the South, which, also involved the creation of some lasting unuiversities, and a significant contribution to the evolving culture of the nation, evident in language and song.
The mass Black migration to the North and West that occurred during WWII and supplied a large fraction of the labor for our war effort, was likely very disruptive to Black families and culture - a subject that I believe has received too little attention. I suspect many found themselves at the bottom of the eonomic ladder in places like Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland competing with the hard scrabble immigrants just escaping it, and in a new culture that had little knowledge of and experience with them - a bit like starting over, just at the moment you think you're done.
The progressive laws of the Johnson era did indeed end the Jim Crow system that had stopped the clock on Black assimilation in major parts of the country, as well as focusing other parts of the country on the cultural side effects of the government-supportsed mass movement of Blacks from the South during WWII - both major achievements. However they left us with a legacy of political patronage ( and patrons who get power and money from it) and race based regulation that I believe is now retarding further progress. We have reached a point at which the adverse side effects of affirmative action exceed its direct benefits. Further progress must be made by individual Black Americans taking control of their lives communities and schools, and in the process gailing their self respect and the attendant respect of others. Future government action should focus on getting out of their way and enabling that natrureal process which will also likely liberate a new generation of Black leadership.
A few months ago I attended a talk given by Jason Riley of the Manhattan Institure, and later spent some time with him discussing it. He's an eminent Black journalist, I think from Buffalo NY; the author of a book entitled, "Please Stop Helping Us" ( I think that tells the story) and a frequent commentator on some news shows. He, like the now retiring very eminent Economist and Philosopher, Thomas Sowell are not particular favorites of the Largely White, Progressive would-be managers of Black life in this country, however they are indeed real clear-thinking leaders representative of others who I suspect will soon emerge. We're half-way through the assimilation of Blacks into our increasinglt common cosmopolitan culture and economy in this country. The remaining steps must be taken by the Blacks themselves and we need to get out of their way and let them do it - just as we did with the Irish, Italian, Jewish and other groups that went this way before them. They and we are all Americans.
So is Blatham (sort of)
